


The Fastest Man Alive

by OnYourMark



Category: White Collar
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-05
Updated: 2010-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnYourMark/pseuds/OnYourMark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started when Neal stole a drawer. It ended with inappropriate superhero jokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fastest Man Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This is a somewhat sequel to [Dressing Down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/126452), and was inspired by a discussion in the comments [here](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/124382). Still makes sense if you haven't read Dressing Down first, though.

It started when Neal stole a drawer.

He just _stole_ it, was the thing. Peter could have countenanced being asked about a drawer, or even if Neal had gone around him to Elizabeth and asked her about a drawer. He would have gladly given Neal a drawer if he had asked or even dropped a strong hint, but no. He stole it.

Peter shouldn't have been surprised. Stealing was, after all, Neal's default state. He might be penitent about it (sometimes) and he might try very hard not to do it any more (mostly) but Neal had been stealing since he was fourteen years old and it probably didn't even occur to him that stealing a drawer in Peter's dresser was not the only option. He had conned his way into Peter's life and then he had practically snuck into Peter and Elizabeth's bed and that was _fine_ , really. Peter liked Neal and he certainly added spice to what had already been a pretty healthy sex life. It kept Neal out of trouble because he was a) getting laid and b) well aware of the fact that part A would cease to be an option if he messed up too badly. And also that Elizabeth would break his kneecaps if he broke Peter's heart (if he hurt Elizabeth, Peter would merely shoot him; Peter Burke was nothing if not efficient).

It was just...did the man stop at nothing? Was there not a point at which Neal Caffrey would just ask for what he wanted like a normal person?

It rankled Peter especially because he didn't know _when_ Neal had stolen the drawer. The first he became aware of it was a Tuesday morning after Neal had spent the night and they'd all overslept. He was rushing to get his shirt on and Neal was casting around for his pants and then suddenly Neal crouched and pulled out one of the drawers in Peter's dresser and there were two folded shirts and a pile of socks and underwear. None of them belonging to Peter, despite the fact that they were in one of his dresser drawers.

"What the hell is that?" Peter asked, stopping dead. Neal looked up at him. Even if Neal had just assumed it would be okay and moved some stuff into one of Peter's drawers, that would still have been fine. But Neal looked guilty, which meant he knew he'd done something devious.

"It's my socks," Neal said.

"What are they doing in my dresser?" Peter asked.

"Waiting for me to put them on?" Neal tried.

Peter couldn't even remember what he'd kept in that drawer. It was one of the lower ones he rarely went into, so it was probably spare towels or old workout clothes or something. But the point remained Neal had emptied it (where?) and somehow smuggled his own clothing over without even wrinkling the shirts (when?) and insinuated them into Peter's dresser while Peter wasn't looking (how?).

But Neal was also looking heartbroken, like he didn't think he'd have been given a drawer if he'd just for god's sake _asked._

"Is this not okay?" Neal said slowly.

"You stole a drawer?" Peter replied.

"I left the drawer itself in place," Neal pointed out.

"Okay, you stole the _air rights_ to a drawer," Peter said patiently.

"As air rights go this is probably a misdemeanor at best. It's not like someone was going to build a high-rise in your dresser," Neal said.

Peter rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We're not having this discussion right now. Get dressed."

"I can take them -- "

"Leave the damn...whatever you have in there, just get dressed," Peter barked, and Neal knew he'd won, and it killed Peter when Neal won. It didn't happen very often. Well, not anymore, anyway.

And it didn't end there. Oh no. That would have made life too easy. Bad enough that he and Neal had to Talk About This, about how it was Okay To Ask For Things and no really, permission was better than forgiveness. Peter knew if he didn't do it now Elizabeth would just make him do it later, so he got that over with.

But then, a week after the Drawer Theft Incident, Peter began to realize what he'd kept in the drawer. He realized it when he opened a desk drawer at work and found a pair of underwear with a tiger printed on them staring up at him. His underwear.

He looked up and through the glass wall of his office, across the bullpen. Neal was leaning back in his chair, grinning at him.

Peter was an FBI agent. He was a grown man, a very serious man, an important man in the Bureau. He carried a gun and interrogated suspects. But to his wife, he was still in some ways the twenty-eight-year-old who didn't own a single pair of socks without a hole in them and hadn't even noticed. He was still the guy who, on his twenty-ninth birthday, laughed so hard he cried when he opened the wrapped package she handed him and found three pairs of novelty boxers inside, each printed with a different superhero logo. And he was the guy she had given many, many funny pairs of socks and underwear to over the years. It was their own private marital joke; every couple had that kind of thing.

He had plain briefs and boxers and lots of regular socks, of course. Most of the time, he wore underthings that were commensurate with the authority he wielded as an FBI agent. But once in a while if they'd neglected the laundry or if he thought Elizabeth needed a laugh in the morning or just because he did have that quiet nonconformist streak, he wore a pair of weird underwear or dog-print socks to work. Occasionally this had backfired badly, like the time Neal had caught him in his New York subway map boxers or the time the entire department had seen the blue socks with the dogs on them, but mostly nobody noticed. If they did notice, they were wise enough to keep their damn mouths shut about it.

That was what had been in the drawer, he now knew: boxer shorts to the theme of eight different subway systems, a pair of briefs with a tiger on them, no less than three sports-themed boxer-briefs (his alma mater, the Giants, and the Knicks), several pairs of socks with various animals printed on them, one pair with Bugs Bunny on them, and one with cavorting Christmas reindeer.

And now Neal had them all, and clearly had a plan to strategically deploy them at inopportune moments. Peter stared at him in horror.

His phone beeped. He looked down out of instinct -- _Nice shorts._

He was so, so screwed. And what was this anyway, ninth grade? He wasn't even sure Neal had _attended_ the ninth grade. He stuffed the tiger underwear into the bottom of his briefcase and refused to rise to the bait. He was perfectly ordinary to Neal all day, which seemed to make Neal sulky.

When he got home that night he found Neal had slipped a single Christmas sock into his pocket with a note pinned to it reading _Its twin will be kept for ransom pending an airing of my demands._ Peter scrawled _The FBI does not negotiate with kidnappers_ below Neal's neat handwriting and left it in his desk the next day. It was gone by lunchtime.

Four days after that, one of the subway boxers appeared in an evidence bag in Peter's briefcase. Two days later it was another single sock, this time in his locker at the gym, and Neal didn't even _go_ to his gym. Peter steadfastly ignored them. He knew he was risking an escalation, which might mean anything from underwear under his pillow to Diana finding his wiener dog socks in her gym bag (helpfully, those were monogrammed) but that was a risk he'd have to take.

Neal played it off like nothing was happening, after the first sparring match over the Christmas sock. Peter couldn't figure out his angle, other than petty revenge over being a felon on a two-mile radius, and Neal wasn't that petty. Besides, it was his own fault.

And the thing about Neal was that he seemed to have really great luck, in a general sense, but sooner or later almost everything he did came around and bit him on the ass.

Peter didn't even have to plot revenge. It just happened, naturally, beautifully, in the middle of a forgery bust. One minute they were standing there discussing the clean arrest they'd just made and the next minute an innocent-looking but booby-trapped cabinet had blown open and etching acid had exploded all over them.

Looking at it after the fact it was pretty serious business; if the cabinet had been sitting on a desk instead of on the floor they would both have needed extensive plastic surgery. As it was, the acid hit pretty much nowhere above the belt, and after a stunned second Peter was already flinging his shoes off and stripping down.

"What the hell -- " Neal asked, but then his own pants began to smoke and he ripped his belt open, cursing as stray droplets of acid stung his fingers.

"Come on, come on, everything off," Peter yelled, pulling his tie loose and tugging his shirt over his head. EMTs were already running towards them with chemical-burn kits, and the evidence tech who'd been working on the cabinet was stripping as well. Peter was down to his thankfully plain briefs, which seemed safe, before he realized that everyone around them was very, very silent, and that Diana had a hand over her mouth.

He turned to Neal, who was also in his underwear and had his hands clasped casually over his groin. This did nothing to hide the fact that his briefs were red and had a large, familiar superhero logo printed on them.

"I'd like a blanket," Neal said loudly. Someone tossed one over Peter's shoulders, but none seemed forthcoming for Neal. On the ground, their clothing was a smoking heap. Neal's gorgeous Devore was toast and Peter's shoes were dissolving -- he'd really liked those shoes -- but he couldn't pay much attention to that because Neal was wearing his underwear. Neal was wearing the _Flash_ underwear El had given Peter for his birthday as a joke.

"Can't you just use your super speed to run home and get one?" someone asked.

Peter felt a moment of irrational anger; after all, Neal belonged to him and he was the only one with the right to be amused at Neal's underwear. Neal, however, calmly unclasped his hands and rested them on his hips, glaring at the techs.

"Well I would," he drawled, "but I can't reveal my superhero alter ego to ordinary citizens."

"Yeah, yeah, Wally West," Peter said, and tossed his blanket to Neal, making a _gimme_ gesture at Diana for a second one. Neal shot him a grin and slung the blanket around his neck like a cape.

"Move along, nothing to see here, the situation is under control," Neal announced, as the EMTs began to herd them towards a waiting ambulance. He leaned over and hissed at Peter, "You are going to pay for this."

"How is this my fault?" Peter whispered back. "You're the kinky little con artist wearing my underwear!"

"I don't know, but it is!" Neal insisted.

"What goes around comes around, Caffrey," Peter replied. "Next time don't wear superhero undies on a bust."

The emergency room cleared them pretty quickly, and Elizabeth showed up eventually with decent clothing for both of them -- jeans and a polo for Peter, and a pair of Peter's khakis and a sweater from the _stolen drawer_ for Neal. Peter and Neal were sitting together in their underwear on a hospital bed, legs dangling off the edge like boys, and she pointedly made no comment when she saw what remained of Neal's dignity, leaving them alone to dress. Before Neal could pull on the khakis she'd brought, Peter twisted his fingers in the waistband of his underwear and tugged, which had the gratifying and instantaneous effect of both constricting Neal and pulling him close.

"You are going to give me back my underwear and my socks," he said in Neal's ear, and twisted a little more just to make sure Neal got the point. "Or I'm going to have that evidence photo of Neal 'The Flash' Caffrey framed and hung on my office wall."

"You wouldn't," Neal breathed. This was true, but Peter currently had him in a very tense situation. "Even the wiener dog socks?"

"They're monogrammed," Peter growled.

"Okay, okay. Wiener dog socks too," Neal agreed hastily. Peter let him go and Neal smoothed out his underwear casually before reaching for the khakis again. He was silent as they dressed, but as Peter was pulling his shirt over his head he heard Neal mutter something.

"What was that?" he asked, tugging the shirt down.

"Nothing," Neal said.

"Neal," Peter warned.

"I just see why you like them, that's all," Neal told him, lifting his chin defiantly. "They add a little excitement to the day."

"Hm," Peter grunted, leading him out of the room and down to the reception desk where Elizabeth was waiting.

"Can I keep the Bugs Bunny socks?" Neal asked hopefully.

"No."

"What about the Christmas -- "

"No," Peter repeated, but Neal looked sad, so he took mercy on him. "Fine. You can keep the Flash."

Neal's grin was huge. "Seriously?"

"If you ever mention you stole them from me to _anyone_..." Peter held up a finger threateningly.

"Okay, okay," Neal agreed. Peter bent to kiss Elizabeth, then graciously allowed her to link her arm with Neal's.

"Come on, Scarlet Speedster," she said, and Neal turned a very pretty shade of red to match his underwear.

END


End file.
